The present invention relates to the formation of bond lines between two components to be bonded together and, particularly, to the formation of a bond line between two shells of a wind turbine rotor blade.
Wind power has attracted much attention during recent years as an alternative source of energy. Wind turbines are used to convert the kinetic wind energy into electric power. For this purpose, utility-class wind turbines have wind rotors which are usually equipped with three huge rotor blades to extract kinetic energy from the wind. Typical lengths for these rotor blades range between 10 and 100 meters. There exists different rotor blade designs but typically the rotor blades are made of fiber-reinforced materials, e.g. glass fiber, carbon fiber, organic aramide fibers or the like. Furthermore, wind turbine rotor blades are typically of a composite design, i.e. the blade body is manufactured from two blade shells which are bonded together.
The current method for bonding together the blade shells is as follows. A suitable adhesive is applied to the surface of one or both blade shells which are then brought into contact, e.g. by putting the shells on top of each other. Thus, an uncontrolled force is used to assemble the blade shells. This conventional procedure provides only minimal control of the bond line formed between the blade shells. Furthermore, a large amount of adhesive is required which increases cost and weight of the rotor blades.